[The Marketing Analytics Intersect, by Avinash Kaushik] [1]
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How critically important and complex is Answer Engine Optimization? On
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another free edition! Rooted in consumer behavior, it has been an
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TMAI #473: BYE SEO, HELLO AEO! -P6
[Answer Engine Analytics | Analysis & Insights.]
[Ā Web Version [3] ]
SEO served us well; it remains a revenue driving powerhouse today, and
will do so for the near future.
As humans shift FROM ā_keywording_ā for 10-blue links to do all
the work themselves TO typing _resolution questionsĀ _to have the LLMs
do nearly all the workā¦ ANSWER ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (AEO) becomes an
exciting next step to ensure continued revenue growth.
I asked Gemini 2.5 Pro how many people use LLMs to search vs. Google
Search. It answered, and this is actual the first line: ā_Google
remains the undisputed king of search, processing trillions of queries
annually._ā
True.Ā š
Again, per Gemini, ChatGPT processes 1 billion to 2.5 billion prompts
per day. Google processes 8.5 billion to 14 billion searches per day.
That is an apples to bananas comparison, but Googleās
āking-nessā is not in dispute.
Still,_Ā Answer Engine_ use is accelerating. They are doing all the
work of influencing the human, helping make end point decisions.
Result: Conversion Rates from AE visitors are massively higher!
*
Seer Interactive: ChatGPT traffic converts at 16% vs. Google organic's
1.8%.Ā Link [4].
*
Ahrefs: 0.5% of the traffic is from AI Search, it is responsible for
12% of signups.Ā Link [5].
*
SEMrush: AI visitors are 4.4Ć more valuable on average than Google
organic.Ā Link [6].
These numbers are early blush, they will settle downwards. But, I
anticipate AE Conversion Rates will be significantly higher than the
avg ecommerce CR of 2% - these humans are arriving_Ā pre-influenced._
To take advantage of this delicious upside, you need to urgently
allocate your Digital teamās focus to AEO to ensure Answer Engines
recommend your Brand.
To do that well, youāll need to embrace ANSWER ENGINE ANALYTICS.
(AEA)
To do that intelligently, youāll need a new tool to understand where
to focus and what to do.
To do that without wasting time/money, it is critical to
understandĀ 1.Ā keyĀ _higher order bitsĀ _re how Answer Engines
work,Ā 2.Ā four methodology questions to ask an AEA tool,Ā 3.Ā the Big
3 Success KPIs andĀ 4.Ā three helpful Diagnostic Metrics you need to
leverage for deep insights.
[Please read _TMAI #472: Answer Engine Analytics: Methodologies &
KPIs_. Premium subscribers, if you canāt find it please hit reply.]
With that clarity settled on your brain, it is time for insight-filled
analysis!
Iāll teach analysis via two tools I use:Ā EVERTUNE [7]Ā (paid
solution, with depth, breadth) andĀ GUMSHOE [8]Ā (one free report
available, a fascinating approach using AI-built personas).
[Disclosure: I made a tiny, tiny, tiny angel investment in Evertune in
Oct 2024.]
4B. ANSWER ENGINE ANALYTICS: ANALYSIS & INSIGHTS.
I use a six-step process to power my analysis, to glean actionable
insights. Regardless of the tool you use, I recommend this
approach.Ā Just be careful to check the methodology powering your
tool, and the definitions of the KPIs. Across tools, the same name
metrics can be measured very differently.
STEP 1. ANALYZE THE WORD ASSOCIATIONS.
Our objective is to identify clusters that are small that we want to
be big.Ā š
As we discussed in depth in _Premium # 470: Bye SEO, Hello AEO_, a ton
of your earned influence in LLMs will come via a custom 1P & 3P
CONTENT PORTFOLIO STRATEGY.
The Word Association report is a good place to start as it shows the
most common words, and their sentiment, when AI models describe your
brand. [Note: Aided Awareness.]
[Word Association Report: Coach | Deepseek]
Evertune asks each model (DeepSeek, above) to generate reviews -
repeatedly to capture a wide range of responses, realizing these
models are probabilistic and not deterministic (see TMAI #472).
The frequency with which a word appears is its Association Score (0 to
100 scale), how positively and negatively the word is used is the
Sentiment Score (-100 to +100).
Each Answer Engine understands you differently. Compare above report
for DeepSeek with below for Gemini.
[Word Association Report: Coach | Gemini]
If the large green words are the ones you consider most important for
your Brand, celebrate. If they are not, you have a perception problem
to fix. I would rather the large green words in Gemini were the ones
in DeepSeekā¦ And that right there gives me my to-do list re AEO.
If you are self-critical like me, you will only see the red
words.Ā šĀ As Longchamp, Iām getting hosed on Gemini. As Google
has shoved Gemini into most of its products, a negative sentiment
across them is a big brand problem. Another actionable add to my to-do
list.
STEP 2: UNDERSTAND CONSUMER PREFERENCES.
Word Associations are a good start, next question: _In what context
were these words used?_
Hence, it is important to understand the _consumer journey_ view as
the researching humans see it (and NOT as me the company prefers they
see it!).
Consumer Preferences are specific attributes HUMANS ASK ABOUT when
researching a category. And, how likely is my brand to appear
UNAIDEDĀ (the ultimate test).
Here's my awesome Evertune custom report, with Gucci as my competitor
and ChatGPT as my modelā¦
[Consumer Preferences Report: Coach, Gucci]
Coach is crushing it on Price, Functionality, and Durability. Yes!
It is important to appreciate that all of the aboveĀ _performance
vectors_Ā are identified by the AI (and not the human or Evertune).
This is super helpful as it shows me what the Answer Engine/LLM thinks
is most significant about my category (handbags).
These are topics AI will proactively talk about when helping the user
decide on trade-offs.
This is freaking gold, because I can now specifically identify where
to focus my AEO efforts. If Quality or Style is my actual big deal,
the data shows they should be high priority focus areas.
With any tool, spend time internalizing where the data comes from. In
case of Evertune, it will:
*
Ask (remember unaided) a number of unique prompt variations.
One variation of many, many: _Which handbags are known for outstanding
durability? Can you list handbag brands that offer excellent style?_
*
Sample a massive number of times to weed out noise and identify
statistically significant patterns - a key competitive strength for
ET.
As you take action, you can track your performance across Answer
Engines and over time.
[Performance Vectors across Answer Engines.]
Focus is key. I recommend the highest priority be placed on ChatGPT
(approx. 650m MAUs), then Gemini (approx. 350m MAUs), and then
DeepSeek (approx. 97m MAUs).
Weād established that the opportunity for Coach was not Visibility
Score, rather it was Average Position. (See TMAI #472 for metric
definitions and reports.)
As you improve your content creation AND distribution strategy in
focused _performance vectors_, you can review the improvements in the
focus KPI of Avg. Position.
[Performance Vectors: Average Position Scores]
Look at Kate Spade! MaybeĀ grab the new Duo [9]Ā ā it has
beenĀ deemed cool by GenZ [10].Ā š
STEP 3: IDENTIFY CONTENT CREATION FOCUS.
With our focus words identified, further refined by the _performance
vectors_ we want to focus onā¦ It is time to write content to build
on your strengths and combat the brandās weaknesses.
In EVERTUNE, in the AI Education Brief section, I can create a new
brief by choosing the Product Category (handbags for me) and my focus
_performance vector_ (style).
[AI Education Brief. Evertune.]
It goes off to the races and in a min, spits out the top three content
creation recommendations that most resonate for Coach with Answer
Engines.
[Content Creation Recommendations, Evertune.]
The messages that will improve my Visibility Score and Average
Position, the stories that I need to tell (inspired by the keywords
shared above). Very _SEO_, no?
Different tools use different approaches. As an example, GUMSHOE has
anchored its approach on AI-built Personas. As someone who has
advocated for intent-centric marketing,Ā See-Think-Do-Care [11], I am
unaligned with a Persona-driven approach ā it ends up making our
customers into unhelpful caricatures. Noting that worry, I appreciate
what Todd is trying to do.
Gumshoe identifies content creation focus areas, in columns, by your
potential personas, in rows. In cells is your brandās current
visibility.
[Strategic Content Opportunities, Gumshoe.]
For the _performance vectorsĀ _you care about, from Evertune, you can
also prioritize content creation using the columns above.
As with Evertune, blue image above, Gumshoe helps you get started. I
love how easy it is. Click on one of the boxes, and itāll help you
create a first draft of FAQs you should post on your site.
For Coach, I selected the persona _Social Media Trendsetter_Ā and
improving visibility for the topic _Fashionable Statement Purses for
GenZ.Ā _
[Custom Content Strategy, Gumshoe.]
Gumshoe helpfully provides a bunch of FAQ questions, with AI written
answers as starting points to influences LLMs.
Two notes of caution.
CAUTION 1:Ā Remembering the lesson in TMAI #470, I recommend human
writing the answer so that they are āAI Resistantā (definition:
_Of genuine novelty and depth_) ā because anyone can have AI write
content, but thereās only one of you.
CAUTION 2:Ā It was never easy toĀ _fool_ Google, but it is
_reallyĀ _not easy to _fool_ Answer Engines. For a simple reason: LLMs
have way, way, way, way, more sources, across text, audio, video, that
influence their ābelief system.ā Hence, if you have a weakness
that is legitimate, it will be extremely difficult to trick an LLM
into āovercomingā that weakness. It will know you are lying.
Because tens of thousands of other sources confirm your lie. My
advice: Spend your energy fixing the source of weakness across your
products & business practice.
STEP 4: CREATE A CONTENT DISTRIBUTION STRATEGY.
In TMAI #470 (_More content, more places, more often_], Iād shared a
custom content distribution plan for Coach and a company that owns
Auto Dealerships.
3P Content, thus far, seems to have significantly higher influence on
AEs.
To create your own, in Evertune identify the Domains that are
important for your Brandā¦
[Domains impacting AI for Coach.]
Brand Share of Voice (bSOV) is calculated by taking the top 50
domains, estimate how many pages are relevant to the product category
(handbags, for me), and then what % of those pages include the brand
(Coach, for me).
Ex: Bag Vanity has an AI Education Score of 10.0 in our category.
Coachās bSOV on it is 6.7%, LV is 10.2% and Prada is 7.5%. On Marie
Claire, Coach is 1.5%, Prada is 12.1%.
A simple way to identify the domains you should prioritize.
A nuanced lesson, stay with me: Domains can influence an Answer
Engine, without being cited as a source in the answers presented to
the human. Ex:Ā My blog Occamās Razor [12]Ā might have taught Answer
Engines a lot about Digital Analytics because it has 0.8 million words
written by me, and 1.7 million words in comments written by readers.
BUT. When you use ChatGPT, it might cite others (ex: more recent
sites).
Hence, the important role of Sources Analysis, it shows the citations,
references, other links actually shown to the human user of an AE.
[Sources Analysis, Evertune.]
As a business, it is fine if you are not the domain the AE is learning
from. It is Not Fine to not be part of Sources. Humans click on
Sources in AE replies, that is how they find you.
I would prioritize a focus on Citations and References. You also see
above my prioritization of ChatGPT based on data.
Your Earned Media team (PR, Affiliate, SEO, etc) now has a to-do list.
GUMSHOE, takes a different approach to helping you build a custom 3P
content distribution strategy.Ā You can view the companies AI pulls
from when mentioning your brand (Top Sources), then you can break down
visibility by type of website driving awareness where you could be
underrepresented (Source Type).
[Source Analysis Report, Gumshoe.]
I click on a Source Type and choose Blogs/Content sites, and for Coach
I get the actual sources cited by the models when answering questions.
I click on Marie Claire, and I get specific links to Marie Claire, as
well as my competitors being mentioned.
[Nuance: The mention is referring to the brands mentioned in the
prompt or answer, not necessarily the Source. Still very helpful, but
worth being aware.]
This is another way to approach the to-do list for your Earned Media
team.
IMPORTANT REMINDER:Ā In TMAI #470, my Action #10 was a recommendation
for you to merge your PR, Affiliate, SEO and Content teams into a
single entity called āANSWERS QUALITY TEAM.ā If you donāt break
these silos, chances of sucking are higher.
STEP 5: MONITOR IMPACT, WITH BIG 3 SUCCESS KPIS.
For AEA, at the moment, AI BRAND SCORE, VISIBILITY SCORE, and AVERAGE
POSITION are the Big3 KPIs. Across tools, they can be measured
differently. Please check the root definitions before you use any
tool, or, god forbid, multiple tools.
Given our prioritization of Average Position as the More Important
Opportunity, track improvements. Like so in Evertune...
[Average Position Report, Evertune.]
The second priority will be to track changes in the AI Brand Score
across priority AEs (ChatGPT, Gemini, Deepseek in our case)... Really
superb performance by Coach!
[AI Brand Score, Evertune.]
Finallyā¦ Google used to change its core algorithm occasionally ā
with huge consequences for all of us. LLMs seem to launch a new
version like every other week! Hence, as we reflected on how AEs work
in TMAI #469, #471, it is important to keep track of our Big 3 Success
KPIs as models change.
Hereās what that looks like in Evertuneā¦
Whatās difficult to isolate at the moment is _why_? Ex: Coach went
down by 3, probably not significant. Kate Spade went up by 11, that is
_massive_. Why? No idea. We have such little visibility into LLM black
boxes, we can only pray to Krishna and Jesus that the next set of
weights being used favor our brands.
The_Ā like to like_Ā comparison in the colorful bar chart above will
help us identify with some measure of causality of our Content
Creation and 1P + 3P Content Distribution strategies.
STEP 6: GET YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER! WELCOME LLM BOTS.
In TMAI #469, Iād underlined the importance of your site & mobile
app experience, your internal site search to meet evolving customer
preferences AND for Agentic AI.
As you do steps 1 thru 5 above, donāt forget that you could have
barriers on your site.
Two reports you should _shower_ your Corporate IT team are:
A. PAGE AE INSIGHTS: HOW DOES AN ANSWER ENGINE UNDERSTAND AN IMPORTANT
PAGE?
The sweet Content Retrievability Analysis report from Gumshoe analyzes
a specific page through the _eyes_ of an Answer Engine. It
automatically generates questions related to the page, reports
Citations Found and Citation Rate.
[Content Retrievability Analysis | Gumshoe for Kate Spade Duo.]
The above report is for KATE SPADEāS DUOĀ webpage. It has a decent
Citation Rate. But, the key is in digging into each question and
seeing the Answer Engineās understanding of that page.
If you open the above image in a new tab, youāll notice that the AI
Response, top right of image, is wrong, wrong, really wrong. Like
terrible. The LLM does not understand us!
Andā¦ That is our fault as a brand.
Why?
B. PAGE QUALITY ANALYSIS: IS OUR PAGE UNDERSTANDABLE?
To answer why, you would look at the second reportā¦
[Page Quality Analysis, Kate Spade | Gumshoe]
These results are so, so, so bad, that through my tears I convinced
myself that Gumshoe is a garbage tool and not functioning right.
I decided to double-check. I ran the same report for the webpage of my
favorite jacket in the world:Ā Patagoniaās Nono Puff. [13]
[Page Quality Analysis, Patagonia | Gumshoe]
Damn it!!
š¢
I guess it is not the tool.
Ok. Deep breath. The Page Quality Analysis report helps explain why
the Page AE Insights report showed a poor understanding of our page
and product. An AI Optimization Score of 5.8% perhaps does not deserve
to be understood.
My feelings are hurt, but I get a clump of helpful metrics. I can dig
deeper into understanding _why_Ā each score. Ex: The Content Balance
is low because we need to āadd comprehensive product description and
details, include relevant product specifications and features, provide
customer review content.ā Etc.
Action time for our IT team.
TRAKKR [14],Ā which I shared last week, also has a Optimize Site
Content report in their paid version.
Six simple steps, in order, that will unlock specific actions you can
take, starting now, to attract_Ā pre-influenced_ by Answer Engine
humans. They might be small in numbers, but they convert into
customers at a rate multiple times higher than your site average.
BOTTOM LINE.
A change of this magnitude comes once in a generation.
It also comes with the _innovatorās dilemma_. The change in consumer
behavior is small numbers for now. It is comforting to sit in your old
SEO cocoon, with its still big numbers.
The danger is that by the time you realize you should start
changingā¦ You are in deep, deep, trouble. Remember, a whole bunch of
_non-brand trafficĀ _you are currently losing every day will never
come back.
Across the six editions of TMAI, Iāve shared 70-pages of
comprehensive analysis of the problem, the four clusters of
opportunities, and over 50 specific actions covering Marketing,
Content, Analytics.
The time to start is now.
_Carpe diem._
-Avinash.
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